five times clarke healed bellamy (and one time he healed her)
by TheOnlyWayIsLove
Summary: "Clarke," he mumbles, voice threatening to crack, "you saved me." "We save each other," she replies immediately. "Though one of these days, your stupid near-death experiences will be the near-death of the rest of us."
1. I

**This was written last week and I've just polished it up, so the details may be a little out of canon! However these snapshots will form a loose canon with each other. More on their way :)**

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><p><strong>I.<strong>

Clarke's field hospital consists of moss, rags and ferns – a poor stock, even by their make-do standards. But most importantly, Clarke's field hospital consists of _her. _

She's spent too much of her life as a healer for Bellamy to feel anything but damned relief at having her work on him. He trusts her, and yes, a lot of it is having his other half around to watch his back and make decisions with again, but there is some part of him saying he draws comfort from her just because she's Clarke. Even though she's actually deliberately trying to not be comforting right now. Her mouth is twisted all small and tight, tightly-balled anger drawing her shoulders up, her eyebrows together.

Weeks apart have bleached his memories of her, and knowing that it's fear for him – responsibility easily shared once more – fuelling her anger, he can't help the smirk that spreads across his face. And it's _so _ridiculous to be happy in the midst of an almost-failed escape, when they're sitting barely a hundred metres from the bodies they left behind (because that's as far as Bellamy and Murphy could drag Finn before Murphy passed out and Bellamy damn near followed him).

But still. This joy at being free and reunited is so ridiculous it just widens his smirk into a grin.

Clarke catches it as she looks up from her wrapping of his wrists, frowning even more. "What's so funny, jerk?"

"Nothin'." She narrows her eyes, tugs the ferns tighter around the moss packing that is makeshift bandage for where his hands were tied and dragged. He rolls his eyes. "Nice to have you back is all, Princess."

"Wish I could say the same for you," she retorts. "You won't be laughing if these go septic."

"I trust you." Plain and simple. The princess is startled enough that she jolts into looking up at him, lips rounded slightly in surprise. But then she just looks back down to the other unbound wrist and shakes her head.

"Grounders made you chatty, huh?"

"Nah, that's all you. They just make me wanna stab stuff. Mostly _them._"

"Yeah, _want _to, not actually manage it."

Ah. She's still pissed off because Bellamy got cut across the head when he threw himself in front of her, hands bound from the grounders' labour prison. Possibly one of the stupider things he'd done in the last hour, he reflects, but whatever, they're free and all five (six, counting their unexpected and very welcome rescuer) are alive.

"We couldn't have you beheaded in the middle of your daring rescue," he says instead. "Anyway, who said chivalry was dead?" His mouth quirks up, and when her eyes meet his, so does Clarke's, seemingly against her will.

"The arch-nemesis of the guy who said it was all girls who were the damsels in distress."

She'd looked like a warrior princess throughout the battle, Bellamy thinks, all predatorial protection for her noble cause. Hair shining, masked in anger and dirt, he'd only gotten a single proper look at her throughout. That was what happened when you were rescued from uncertain death by stealth rock-throwing, careful knife-passing, and branch-leaping gone slightly awry.

He shakes his head slightly to dispel the image somewhat. If she had been a warrior princess, he had been a blinking potato. By the time he'd recovered from the head wound and cut the rope in half, the battle had been pretty much over. In fact, he'd been freed just in time to see Finn get knifed in the thigh. He unsubtly tries to change the subject. "What do you want us to do with Spacewalker? Too bad there's no zero-G down here for us to float him through."

Clarke braids off the ends of the fern and turns his left wrist over for a final check, brow wrinkled in thought. "I think we'd better get him back to my mom. We've not got moonshine, thread or… or anything. Plus it could be poisoned, but Anya's definitely too long gone for any help there."

"We've had worse stab wounds," Bellamy replies. Clarke shoots him a funny look. "What?"

"Why're you still so upbeat?"

"We don't need anything else," he tells her carelessly. "We've got you."

She tilts her head back in a laugh that seems to light up every corner of the woods. "You sure they didn't poison you, Blake?"

"Not entirely," he admits. "But if you want me carrying Spacewalker in a fireman's lift all the way back to prison, you might have to find something to stop him bleeding the trail back."

"You up for that?" Clarke's eyes take in the measure of him, and he can see that she's noting all the hurts she can't yet heal and that she feels like she's failed with, but also… Bellamy can see her belief in him starting to rekindle, her knowledge that he'll do it even though he can see she's not happy with his condition.

And okay, his head will probably hurt like crazy the second he lifts it from this slumped position against the tree, but whatever. He's tough. And the home-shaped hole that had been torn in his heart feels like it's already being stitched back together.

If that's not healed enough to operate, he doesn't know what is. So Bellamy pushes himself up unsteadily and throws Finn's sorry ass over his shoulder while Clarke pulls Murphy upright and calls for Sterling and Monroe.

Yeah, it's good to be reunited.


	2. II

**A/N: Posting this from my sickbed because I want to thank everyone for their wonderful response to the last chapter! It has been so, so encouraging...so I'm sorry it's been a considerable length of time since the last post. I hope this chapter being 3.3x longer makes up! And that it fills the gaping hole of no-episode-tonight somewhat. (Also, swearing warning.)**

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><p><strong>II.<strong>

He plays a bigger part in the rescue of his people, which is far more dramatic, painful, and difficult to pull off than the last one. He and Clarke had been desperate for no more deaths.

And of course, their long week spent carefully planning every detail went straight out the window once they put the mission in motion. At least, Bellamy thinks, there were only the few Mountain Men that were too quick off the mark who didn't make it.

But seriously, who runs _out_ of a mountain that you think is under radiation lockdown? They were only supposed to be zipped up in their radiation-protection suits when Bellamy's ragtag band blew open the rock with the rocket fuel. And of course, that hadn't worked as predicted either, even with Raven calculating all possibilities as far as she could.

They'd managed to get in, anyway. And most of the hundred (or however many they were now) had apparently been persuaded to leave Mount Weather when Clarke and Bellamy ran towards the new exit in the mountain. _Fearless leaders, reunited! _Miller had said they looked like a dream come true. He was only half joking.

But that had been then. Some people had stayed behind, Jasper had reported. And some of the Mountain Men had come with the hundred, despite the risk of their being fried alive, Jasper's girlfriend (June? Mandy? Bellamy can't grasp her name right now) among them. None of this would be a problem, except for the fact that between blowing a hole in Mount Weather and the kids regaining Camp Drop Ship – thankfully cleared of the dead bodies and ash before they arrived – doubts apparently took root. And by the time the soaked-through bunch trudged into the destroyed space that had once felt like home, Bellamy and Clarke had a near mutiny on their hands.

This really wasn't how the triumphant return was supposed to happen.

And this was exactly why Bellamy didn't usually get his hopes up. Maybe, he thought irritatedly, it was too much to hope for, that his people would care that he wasn't dead, and that they'd not want to live out the rest of their lives in captivity.

He'd not spoken more than two words to Clarke since everyone made it back, but from the closeness of her shoulders and the tightness of her jaw, she was feeling every inch as annoyed as him, and trying (probably harder) not to show it. She was the good cop, after all.

Had his people really expected that all their fabulously high-tech material tents would actually remain unpilfered? (Because _yes_ they were mostly gone.) What was in the drop ship had been protected, but Clarke _had _promised a scouting the next day to persuade her mother to give them more supplies. That was a major sacrifice on Clarke's part, since their on-again-off-again mother-daughter relationship was currently _off_ from Abby's inability to take her daughter's leadership seriously. But Clarke was going to put that aside, for the hundred.

And why was everyone complaining about the lack of supplies in camp? (Not that there had ever been that many.) Bellamy had seen straight away how clean, well-fed and healed his people looked after only a month or so in the mountain. Everyone seemed to have gained eight pounds. He reckoned he'd probably _lost _that much, or would break even on the scales if all the month's dirt facials could come too.

But they'd managed some good foraging along the way. And Bellamy had already sent out a hunting party. He'd been about to leave himself to lead it, but when Clarke had asked what he was doing as she rushed by, he hadn't the heart to abandon her. She had been right, that day in the drop ship. The kids listened to her because _he _did. And now everyone was so grumpy…

Miller had led the hunting instead.

An hour after they'd left and arguments about immediate shelter were sort of simmering down, he feels a tugging at his sleeve. A kid – small, really small. Ten? Dressed in fancy clothes, but then all his people are now, so it doesn't say much. Bellamy doesn't really recognise her, so suspects this is one of the newbies, but crouches down with as much of a smile as he can muster. (Alright, well, less of a frown anyway. _Okay, _she's reminding him a little of his sister, which both softens him and upsets him.)

"What's up?" he asks.

The kid raises her dark eyebrows, drawing them together nervously. "I – I was just – could I get some wood for a fire? I'm a bit cold." She hugs her arms self-consciously, tugging at the black braid which is matted with blood.

Bellamy takes her in. A linen dress over leggings and some sort of sandals – yeah, with the sun going down, anyone would be cold. He very nearly manages the smile this time. "Sure. But I'll chop it for you. What's your name?"

"Scarla."

"Well Scarla, if you follow me, I'll find an axe and some wood to chop, you search out the kindling. Deal?"

She nods hard, and dutifully trails at Bellamy's heels as he marches to the tool pile and seizes his favourite axe. There should be enough proper branches on the ground after that last storm, but just in case they have to go a little away from camp to chop down actual saplings, Bellamy tucks a long knife into his belt. Maybe it'll deter stupid Grounders.

Two more people complain to him before he even makes it out the gates, and Bellamy feels bad about leaving Clarke to deal with all this. But the strain of being leader to unhappy people is exhausting, and if he wants to stay (semi-)civilised in how he deals with people, he needs to work off some steam chopping wood. Also, unless they get wood, there'll be no fire, and without the fire, no food or warmth. So, it's defensive abandonment. And yes, he feels crappy for doing it. But he has to reason out that she'll like it even less if he kills one of their newly-saved people.

They trail out into the woods, just a few minutes out to where the chopping block should be. And yep – after everything their camp has gone through, the large round block is still sitting in the same spot. It lightens something in Bellamy's chest slightly. In the midst of losing Octavia, it's a nice reminder than not everything has gone. Not by a long shot.

There's actually several logs still piled up that he can use, so Bellamy gets to work, chucking his jacket over the wheelbarrow handles. (Good thing that had been hidden. It had taken the engineers too long to work out how to put it together in the first place.)

He falls back into the place-swing-chop routine easily. What once had been a frustrating task now begins to drain away his frustration from the hundred. It blanks the mind, and after ten minutes he's not really thinking about anything except how full the wheelbarrow already is. This'll keep a fire going for a few hours, anyway. If he fills it and brings it back to camp twice, maybe -

"AHHHHH!"

The scream jolts Bellamy halfway through his swing, making him twist instinctively towards it. And some part of him also knows what's about to happen, because his muscles are trying to pull back even as the axe cuts down and into his shin.

He reckons the pain's made him black out for a second, because next thing he knows, he's crouched over the block and Scarla's pushing his shoulder, her little face pulled tight with upset. "Are you…"

"I'm fine," Bellamy manages to say, doing a mental scan of his leg and okay, it hurts like a goddamn bitch, but he can probably hobble with the wood and hand himself in to Clarke once the fire is going. Then another thought crosses his pain-addled mind. "Hey, what'd you scream for?"

"I thought there were panther eyes," Scarla admits, red-faced, "but they were just fireflies."

"Really?" It's not firefly season. Not even close; it was just ending when they landed. Bellamy glances around the near-dark clearing, deciding. "How's about we take back all the great wood you've collected now? We need to drop it off before there's too much to carry."

Through the pain in his right leg, he finally manages an actual crooked smile at Scarla, who bares her teeth back.

They set off, his jerky motions making the wheelbarrow tip dangerously with every other step. There's just one more ridge left before camp when shouts break through the homely drift of the night. _Trouble._ And just like always, Bellamy just glances once at his companion before running towards it. He's – well, he's been in better shape. But it's only thirty seconds later that he careens into camp, gates abandoned by the guards he'd posted not two hours ago.

He dumps the 'barrow and runs up to the mob outside the drop ship, pulling people to either side. They start at the sight of him, which helps in his push towards the middle. A weight at the back of his shirt tells him Scarla's somehow still holding on.

He breaks through the throng to the centre with leg pulsing, arms waving, and expression radiating anger. Yep – as expected, some absolute shit is screaming at Clarke, their cronies shoving Jasper and Monty around as they stand either side of Clarke. She's doing a good job of looking fierce, but the kid opposite her probably has eighty pounds on her, and isn't really looking for a rational argument.

And in the rest of this single glance, Bellamy takes in how the stupid cronies are gonna actually hit Plant Boy and Goggles in seconds. So he does the first thing he can think of: end the fight by starting it. He throws his whole body in a massive punch at Angry Kid's face.

Angry Kid reels back, but isn't floored, which is probably a good thing; anything involving legs isn't going to go Bellamy's way right now. With this in mind, Bellamy lunges forwards again and delivers a cracking – literally, bone crunches – blow to the idiot's nose with his left fist. This makes the guy reel back even further, into the outer edge of the crowd, and Clarke shouts in dismay, marching the few feet up to him.

"Bellamy!"

"He was about to attack you," he says roughly. "What's his problem?"

She turns her head away, eyeing up the throng that's still looking for blood. "It doesn't matter. Just a stupid opinion. Nothing you can fix."

"Like hell." Bellamy reaches out to touch her upper arm, the pain creasing the angry lines in his face further. "What did he _say, _Clarke?"

"That…" she sighs. "That we just want them back for the power. We're militaristic. And um, something about me… 'screwing you for the power like a hungry…'"

Bellamy can guess what word she's missed out and that's it, all the frustration he'd worked off is burning through him with pulsing ferocity. He clenches her arm before realising what he's doing, and turns around to address the mob.

"We haven't brought you back here for the power," he starts scathingly. His people fall quiet. "We saved those who chose to be saved. We might not have hot water, or incredible food, but unlike Mount Weather, we're not doing mutation experiments on some of our so-called guests!"

Whispers break out around him. Yep, as Clarke had guessed, nobody had worked out the truth about the human trials in the time that she was gone. "You chose to come with us, and you chose us to lead you. Don't go starting fights with Clarke, when all she has done is keep you safe! Anyone who's had an injury since being on the ground, we'd have got infected and _died _without her."

Bellamy glances over at the princess, face softening slightly at her embarrassment, but hardening up as he scans the restless crowd. "Now get back to your posts! Whatever stuff was in the food at Mount Weather has been making you dependent on them…" well, it was a theory Clarke had, but an easy explanation was best right now, "so let's get a fire going for when our food gets in."

People start chatting, some smiling, and gradually disperse. Bellamy stands tall beside Clarke with arms folded and a stern expression to drive the kids away. After a few moments she sighs in relief beside him, turning inwards.

"Thanks," she mutters, and heads up the ramp into the drop ship. "It was all going so well, too, it's just when – Bellamy?"

She turns just in time to see him attempt a second, staggering step – and fall to his hands and knees as the effort of keeping up the injured leg becomes too much for his right knee.

"Bel!" Before he's even sat back, Clarke's kneeling over him and pushing up his pants leg, her gentle fingers clinically cool against his burning shin. He focuses on her golden hair beneath him, trying to ignore the distancing pain washing over him. Clarke sucks in a breath almost silently upon seeing the nasty gash, but to her credit looks up at him with an almost unbothered expression. It's just the little crease between her eyebrows which speaks all the care in the world. "Nice job with that, moron." She glances over her shoulder, but there's not really anyone paying attention to them. "Let's just get you in before anyone decides to start a riot."

He manages to stand up by pushing up on her shoulders, then she tucks neatly under his left arm so he can hop inside as subtly as possible. Through the teeth-gritting pain, he manages, "Never let it be said that the damsel in distress came second."

Clarke snorts. Bellamy reflects that he should probably stop trying to save her since she _is _a very competent leader who's probably not actually in need of him. "Yeah, I'm so distressed I can hardly stitch you up. _God, _Bel, how'd you manage it?"

"Axe. We need a damn fire," he says semi-grumpily, regretting too late that he might have offended her. But no, of course not. Clarke just shakes her head, amusement softening the corners of her mouth, and turns away to pull out her sutra kit, scrounging up the last of their alcohol.

"But we _don't _need you on crutches for the next eight weeks because your bone's shattered… I don't know how you even managed to stop that. This is seriously good luck. Still gonna hurt like a crazy, and if you pull these stitches I swear I'll stitch you to the bed for months."

He considers a quip about her tying him to the bed but dismisses it; Bellamy doesn't want to annoy her and ruin the moment. "Yeah, yeah. The camp needs us too much for that." At her icy glare he huffs and adds, "_but _I'll try to not rip anything, _alright_?"

"Good," the princess responds primly. "Now do you want a rag to bite down on or you gonna be a masochist about this too?"

"What do you think?" Bellamy lifts the corner of his mouth, promptly gritting his teeth as she pours alcohol into the wound. _"Shit!"_

She shoots him a wry grin but doesn't offer a chance to take back his previous decision, just moves in and gets to work.

An hour later, when they've both cleaned up as well as they can in the dirt-encrusted drop ship, Clarke helps prop Bellamy up (his hand gets tangled in her hair and it takes a long minute to untangle his fingers from those warrior-princess locks and oh god he even brushes her neck twice and makes her jump because of his calluses against that super-soft skin, _oops_). With her eyes fixed on his, Clarke slowly walks out of the drop ship, attempting for his sake to make it appear like a slow saunter she happens to be taking under Bellamy's arm.

Really, of course, she's his crutch. As always. And Bellamy feels a rush of gratitude that she is protecting him as much as possible from their people, keeping him looking as strong as possible, when really he probably deserves to be dumped on the ramp and left to struggle along, alone.

Dusk-shadowed faces turn towards the co-leaders, but nobody seems to care much either way about their reappearance. Maybe it's too much stimulation for one day. Maybe it's the smell of roasting venison and smoke.

Or maybe it's just that Team Clarke-and-Bellamy is normal again, part of life. As he glances up between staggering steps, Bellamy hopes it's that.


	3. III

**A/N: trying to fit this story more in with canon. Thus, definitely don't read if you haven't seen the midseason finale! Speaking of which- it's my personal headcanon that Kane is actually Bellamy's father so I couldn't believe it when he addressed him as "son" hahaha ****_help_**

** You can thank Toto's song "Africa" for this update! It is super-inspiring for Bellarke, whatever your thoughts on 80s synth pop:**

**_I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become…_**

**_It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you_**

**_There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do_**

**Seriously, I think it might just power me through the next chapter too (which is going to shake up the pattern thus far established through chapters I-III). Even though I'm supposed to be updating my other fic first… **

**So much love and hugs and tears of joy go out to everyone who has favourited, followed and reviewed my baby so far. I love you all so much and it inspires me so, so much – thank you a thousand times for your kindness! (Also to Val, for the cheerleading 3) I'm dissatisfied with the ending, but you've all waited far too long. **

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><p><strong>III. <strong>

"You just have to _not _be a pain in the ass," Bellamy grumps. He hunches his shoulders in a futile attempt to hide anyone seeing them in this dimly-lit Ark corridor, checking furtively over both shoulders. Camp Jaha makes him feel like he's constantly under scrutiny, once more living life desperate to keep his sister safe. "You've got til tomorrow at noon to decide. You've had three days here. And we're not cutting you off, Clarke's made sure anyone can come back any time."

Never mind that he had agreed, but it's late and this Rowan kid has already changed his mind _four _times. Bellamy has a lot of time for kids with problems, but there seem to be any number of correct answers in Rowan's case, and he can't seem to stick with a single one.

"I know," the boy mumbles, wringing his hands, "I wanted to stay with my Dad, but he won't let me outside the fence… Clarke didn't think it was a good idea to leave."

Bellamy tries to keep his face impassive and his voice final. "Clarke is trying to do the best for you. We'll be back in a month. Try staying a month and call a review at the end." Never mind that the princess is so desperate to leave Camp Jaha that she's overcompensating for everyone else's needs.

"Okay, okay…" Rowan takes a deep breath and raises his chin towards Bellamy. "I'll do it. I'll stay."

"Good man." Bellamy offers him a smile. "Now get out there and celebrate, yeah?"

"Yeah. Got it. Thanks Bellamy."

"Any time." Rowan offers him a salute in reply and merrily strolls off in the direction of the campfire. It was a celebration of the return of the hundred, the Ark united once more in a way nobody had ever dared hope for. Adults and kids alike were letting off steam, although Monty had tried to let both sides think they were the only ones with the alcohol; it kept everyone happier.

Bellamy rubs his forehead, mind drifting to where his co-leader would be found. She occupies a well-worn spot in his mind – he finds himself questioning almost every action now, whether Clarke would approve or not – but in the last few days' fraught political games, she has been taking it hard.

Bellamy kind of understood. The adults didn't trust them, definitely not him, and not to keep up their own camp, so Clarke was trying her damndest to keep everyone civil and open the whole time. Not to mention the Finn-shaped demons she wrestles with. It's hard on her, and Bellamy hates that he is part of the burden on her.

He needs to see her, doesn't stop to examine why as he pushes off the wall and marches outside, hands buried deep in his jacket pockets. Jasper reckons nights are going to get shorter soon, which would be nice. There's not enough daylight any more for all their building and developments back at camp, back home.

Between the clumps of talking and laughing people, he strides with purpose towards the fire. As predicted, he can just about make out a short girl there with a golden outline to her head. He picks up the pace, shoulders relaxing downwards and strides loosening, and comes to stand right behind Clarke. Over her shoulder, Bellamy can see her hands rubbing together almost frantically in an attempt to get warm.

He leans down to her ear, lips tangled in her hair to say quietly, "Last night here and only seven kids are staying. You did good, Princess."

She lets out a shaky laugh, pulling her arms into herself and staring forwards. "I'm not sure the adults will actually let us leave tomorrow. And it's less than half we came down with."

"Only just." Bellamy notices how her whole body is shivering now, though with the cold or exhaustion or emotion, he can't tell. He's got no other words of comfort either, so without stopping to overthink, he uncurls his arms and pulls them across, inch by inch, over Clarke's stomach. It should feel awkward, but with his chin tucked in beside the crown of her hair, her back warm against him, Bellamy feels like he could just fall asleep here and rest at last.

Clarke's not exactly stiff against him, but it takes a moment for her shoulders to relax properly and her head to roll back to his shoulder. Inch by inch, she sinks into him. Quiet moments later, she lets out a deep breath that fills Bellamy with a strange hum.

Just like all their communication, she doesn't need to do anything else for him to hear her meaning. _Finally resting_, that sigh says; _we haven't rested in so long_.

Bellamy's own slowed breathing agrees. It takes a weight off his own shoulders to see Clarke forgetting – for once – the painful tangle of emotions associated with her mother and the Ark. Bellamy struggles to feel his own connection to the Ark; all he ever cared for was his mother and Octavia, and neither of them are here. There's certainly nothing else for him in this place of nightmare cages.

Slowly, he has put together Clarke's own hidden Ark jigsaw. The girl from Phoenix had a lot of good times there, with her beloved parents, and medical apprenticeship, and wonderful best friend; the girl on the ground hates and loves her mother for betraying her father, and holds the lives of people in her hands for real, and her best friend is dead.

Clarke is and is not the girl from Phoenix. And if Bellamy can understand anything, it is the difficulty of escaping incarnations of your past self.

It is so easy to stand like this, holding her, that Bellamy refuses to question why he is doing it. If hugging Clarke creates a shield of peace for them, he isn't going to contaminate it. Not yet. (Everything he touches goes to waste in the end. Even his strongest tie, Octavia, has snapped now.)

The warmth of Clarke, combined with the flames, is so relaxing that when their bubble is burst by a shout very nearby, Bellamy physically feels the cold weight on his skin again.

It is almost painful, but Clarke is twisting around to find the ruckus, so he drops his arms. His co-leader sends him one suspended, shared look of connection before she disappears. It fills Bellamy with a sense of grave things to come, and an ache of displacement somehow. He stays where he is for a second, chilly all of a sudden, trying to puzzle it out. But with another shout comes the need to focus.

Over the heads of the crowd, he sees the flash of Clarke's hair; it looks like she's placating the two boys at the centre of the fight, and there's a sort of relaxation that comes across the people around them as they realise there won't be a fight after all.

But there _is _still movement. A struggling set of people – no, just the one person, pushing towards him. Bellamy frowns, but waits for the person to emerge by the fire.

Another ten seconds and the dark figure comes lurching out, limbs slightly akimbo, normally sleek hair all matted and torn. And oh _God, _it's Raven, brace clanking and squeaking on her poor leg, but she doesn't even seem to notice the blood smeared across her face as she trips towards him. Bellamy has to quickly step forwards to catch her, but even as he tries to haul her upright, she pushes him off roughly and turns her face away.

"Go _'way, _Bellamy!" She slurs her words slightly and stumbles towards the fire. Bellamy ignores her, following closely in case he has to catch her again, but doesn't touch the broken mechanic.

"You came to me," he says neutrally instead.

Or maybe it's not as neutral as he thought, because when she turns her head towards him, there's an aggressive snarl across her face. Bellamy is an expert in replacing emotions with anger, but he's also slowly realising that this destructiveness doesn't actually work if you want to do more than survive. And actually, it's most useful if you don't intend to survive.

"Don't you _dare pity _me," she hisses. "This is _your fault._"

"Raven –"

"You got him that stab wound!" She lurches towards him; Bellamy steps back. "You kept back Clarke. _You _didn't stop him. And you just let her go, go and – "

A great sob falls out of Raven's mouth, and she half-turns, shoving her arm over her face. Bellamy goes to move towards her – offer comfort, maybe protest – but in a flash Raven is transformed once more to a vicious avenger.

"No," she snarls, turning and shoving Bellamy back, towards the fire. He glances over his shoulder, very aware of the pit now a foot behind him, but has to focus on the glint of… something metal, which Raven is holding like a weapon. He doubts she came here armed to hurt him, but grief has a way of sitting on your chest and kidnapping your spirit; teamed with moonshine, this natural warrior has just become quite an irrational and nasty threat. "No, you don't get to call for your partner. Clarke's gone. But she'll come back to you."

Raven's eyes have filled, her jaw has clenched, her lips pulled back to reveal grinding teeth. "She'll come back for us, Raven," Bellamy says quietly. "She cares about you, so much."

"Clarke ruined my life," Raven states, stepping forward. "But who let her? _You._"

She probably overbalanced; she probably only meant to jab Bellamy emphatically in the chest. But all of Raven's weight slams into him, and he doesn't have time to think anything besides _oh shit _before he lands in the fire pit.

Everything happens very quickly after that.

Raven is sprawled across his legs, which are somehow still on the muddy grass; for him to get out of the fire as fast as he can, he has to dig his hands into the burning material so he can push upwards as hard as possible. It works, kind of: Raven is tipped off and Bellamy makes it most of the way up, but is forced to push his right hand down again momentarily, pain seizing up his arm.

And then he's up again with a spinning head. This position – standing in pain – is too familiar. He glares down at Raven as she pulls herself up from the ground again. Because now – with his hands beginning to radiate an excrutiating heat that he is already bored of feeling, let alone in the weeks to come – Bellamy cannot contain his anger at her accusations to a patient understanding.

"Finn's death is Finn's fault," he barks, eyes boring with a burning fury into Raven's. "Not Clarke's, not mine. She didn't choose to be lied to_, _okay? She didn't choose to be captured with him either. And she definitely doesn't choose to be controlled by anyone else, or have her actions blamed on others." Bellamy steps closer up to her, rage written all over him. "Do not blame Clarke for any of what Finn chose."

Raven opens her mouth to respond, hatred lining her haggard face, but Bellamy pushes past her and seizes the nearest delinquent. By all unfortunate accounts, it's Rowan. "Take Raven to Abby Griffin's infirmary," he orders. "She's ill and needs to sleep it off."

Rowan takes a look at the coiled bundle of rage several yards away and visibly balks. "Bellamy, is she –"

"Just get someone to help. I've got to find Clarke." He nods at Rowan, who swallows and nods back.

He shoulders through the crowd, burning hands splayed across the melted plastic. There's anger inside him that he's trying not to look at, anger at Spacewalker and his stupid womanising that's turned Raven into a harpy and his _no damn right_ to lying, anger at Raven for her blame and breaking this bubble of peace he'd found with Clarke, and yeah, anger at himself for letting all of this happen.

But he tries hard, really hard, to concentrate on searching out that golden head, on channelling this anger into something useful so he doesn't turn it on the world instead. He needs to burn it up, rid himself – how?

"Bellamy!" He almost slams into Abby Griffin. She smiles up carefully as he half-steps away. "Are you okay?" He can almost hear the "_you look like you're about to murder someone"_ tacked on the end, but Dr Griffin tactfully refrains from voicing it.

"I need Clarke, have you seen her?"

"She went towards the infirmary. One of the kids hit their head in the scuffle."

Bellamy nods his thanks and continues on that way. He'd hoped she might be there; it's pretty close, needing to be easily accessible, and Rowan is further behind with Raven.

The remaining people between Bellamy and the med bay clear away when they catch sight of him. Their inebriated chatter and warmth no longer seems to create a bubble for warmth but a curtain that separates him (and maybe Clarke) from the Ark cattle. How can they all be so stupid?

Loud metallic clangs echo as Bellamy stomps up the ramp and past the privacy curtain. Clarke has her back to him, is talking quietly – firmly but sympathetically – to some overgrown kid who's been allotted too much damn hooch so thinks he can show them up by picking fights.

Bellamy grits his teeth, but his hands are shaking and burning, and he's pretty sure he can smell singed hair, and his shin is throbbing so he's probably pulled the three-week-old stitches there, and –

Before he can process what he's done, Bellamy finds himself hearing a massive bang and his toes ache. The wall looks untouched, which infuriates him even more, so he draws back his leg and kicks again, harder, so he almost loses his balance and the resulting bang fills the room.

He's contemplating a third kick when his shoulder is seized from behind and he is spun around. Clarke's face, filled with confusion and worry, gazes up at him while the kid she was telling off scampers out behind. Bellamy searches her face for a second, but there is no fear there. That helps him untense enough to slowly draw out his hands and wordlessly show them to her.

Clarke pulls her eyes from his. She frowns only slightly as she cradles his burning hot palms with her cool ones, but her eyes widen when her fingertips skim the damaged skin. She turns them both so there is more light, and the full damage is revealed to them both. Bellamy can't help but wince; splotches of white and angry red pattern his palms and fingers. His left hand is already puffing up but he suspects that the more damaged right hand will be sore for far longer.

"Bellamy…" Clarke breathes. And all of a sudden, it breaks the spell. "Bel! Oh my gosh, here." Clarke runs across the room and heaves up a bucket, hauling it over and dumping it on the nearest plinth. "Come on, get your hands in there _immediately._"

Bellamy jumps up to sit beside the bucket, peering in. It seems to be filled with plain old water, so he plunges his hands in with more force than is strictly necessary. There is relief alongside the pain that the coldness brings. Bellamy breathes out and remembers when Octavia burnt herself in their tiny room because she was learning to toddle and her arm knocked the cooker; the Walden water had been off for seven hours and wasn't like to come on for another fifteen, so all they'd been able to do was hold her arm against the coldest metal objects that they could find.

"What happened?" Clarke asks quietly. She's standing close, just the other side of the bucket. Bellamy looks at her quiet upset, her long lashes, and gathers his words while Rowan struggles in with a now fully blacked-out Raven. He deposits her on a bed on the opposite side of the infirmary and Bellamy nods to him, waiting til they're alone again before speaking.

"Raven came up to me, pissed and pissed off. Started talking shit about how it was your fault and my fault for Finn. I defended, and – she got too enthusiastic in her anger. I ended up in the fire. Miracle this jacket only melted a little. Tore the stitches in my leg trying to get back up."

He thought Clarke would immediately check his shin, but she stays rooted in front of him instead, biting her chapped lip. The tight lines across her forehead have returned, and Bellamy wishes he could drown the past angry minutes in her eyes. His fingers twitch with the need to smooth across her forehead, but unless he wants to drip water down her face…

His fingers stay where they are instead. The cold is hurting, but it feels like it's doing its job, draining the heat from him slowly but surely. _Kind of like Clarke._

"If I'm going to suture your leg and treat those burns, we're going to need to send out a search party first thing in the morning for the Plantain," she says finally. "I need to double-check, but I think _Plantago major _grows all around here, so I can make up a poultice as soon as we've got the leaves. We'll push back our leaving til the day after tomorrow. Your hands need to stay in cold water for hours, if possible. And – "

"Princess." She meets his eyes again. "They don't need to know. Let's leave tomorrow."

"But you're hurt," she protests. "Hey, let me see those torn stitches."

"_Clarke."_ At that she stops trying to pull up his pant leg but stays on her knees. "They don't need to know," Bellamy repeats. "I'll live. I can't stay here another day when…"

She looks up at him, and her eyes are filled with tired tears. She heaves in a breath before saying, "Maybe Raven's right."

"No, Clarke," Bellamy says immediately. "We've done this. And you do nothing but save us, over and over. Even the adults can tell that."

She concentrates on pushing his trouser leg up, shaking her head at the torn sutra. Her fingers and breath brushing over his skin sends peculiar shivers through him. Bellamy stares at the top of her head, reflecting the light beneath the grime. He likes that the light shines through alongside the muck. It gives him hope.

"Do you want me to stitch you up now or in the morning?" Clarke asks at last, standing up. Her topic change is a transparent attempt to bury that emotion in her work instead. It occurs to Bellamy that this is as dangerous as burying it under anger, except she can't stitch up a wall to help get it out. "Bellamy?"

"Talk to me," he says roughly. "Don't just channel it."

Clarke blinks. "I – well, how about I talk to you while I stitch you up now?"

"Yeah, that works." Bellamy tries to shift the bucket but winces as his sore skin scrapes the sides. Clarke rolls her eyes and moves it for him, muttering about requisitioning moonshine and targeting top foragers as she goes on a hunt for the sutra kit.

When she returns, he removes his hand from the bucket long enough to grasp her wrist. Her healer's skin feels like a sauna against his cooled hand, but Bellamy gives her a soft smile. "Thanks for sorting me out, Princess. And… sorry for the outburst."

Clarke gives a self-deprecating smile back, moving to squeeze his arm. "I'm pretty used to us mopping each other up by now, Bel."

With those words, he feels such a sudden surge of gratitude towards her that Bellamy cannot keep himself still; he _needs_ to have her arms around his shoulders and crush her to him. It is a ridiculous desperate pull, and he moves to quickly pull his other hand from the water.

But Clarke catches his wrists and pushes them back in the cold water, grimacing at Bellamy's stubborn mask that falls into place at the accidental rejection. "We need to leave first," she says, and he's not sure if the words are for her or him, but there's a hundred meanings buried there and what she means is _I'm not going anywhere, we're staying at each other's sides._

So Bellamy nods and grits his teeth while she begins to talk.


	4. IV

**A/N: ***sidles in with a cough* … hiii. So I know it might have looked, for a while there, like I'd forgotten this story. But nah: it's because I've been doing a _lot_ of research and redrafting to try to get this monster of a chapter (it's as long as all other chapters combined lol) accurate in its cultural representation. And then at the height of my block, the finale happened and shattered my heart. Fortunately, writing _in love may you find the next_ has seriously helped me repair my heart. And just to clarify: _Five Times _will remain divergent from canon post-2x08. (Also in the detail that I haven't had Octavia return, and how they got the kids out of Mt Weather without genocide.)

I want to send so much love to Thea (maytheymeetagain on tumblr) for her help and support with the Tagalog in this chapter! She is such an inspiration – and I don't think I've mentioned it before but she's the reason I actually started writing bellarke fanfic. Every single one of her bellarke fics is incredible.

I really hope I've used everything from other cultures appropriately in this chapter. Please, everyone, just let me know if I've accidentally made a faux pas, because I really mean no disrespect and only want to enrich the bellarkeverse with Bob Morley's Filipino heritage (and Henry Ian Cusick's Peruvian heritage too ;) )

On a final note, all the symptoms are true to life. Don't OD on aspirin, kids.

* * *

><p><strong>IV.<strong>

The skin on his hands is still too tender to hold a gun, the skin on his leg still pulling painfully and tiring easily, but Bellamy had become too bitterly restless to stay contained in camp any longer. Clarke could see how he needed to get out in the woods again, so agreed on a short reprieve without (much) argument over the risks. It is merely a scouting mission, an attempt to discover whether Monroe really had seen caves on their southern border. It's probably only the desperation of blind wishful thinking that drives Bellamy to agreeing on such a small party, too.

They find the caves all right. And everyone is overjoyed for all of two minutes, until Miller makes it down the long, steep bank ("we could cut proper stairs next time") without pitching, Monroe on his heels, Harper staying back on the ridge with Bellamy. It takes all of one look into the black rocks for Miller to turn back angrily and shout, "they're full of water!"

"All the way back?" Bellamy shouts back, heart sinking. They would have been a blessing in winter. Everyone knew it was a long shot that the caves would be habitable, but this is an unexpected first major obstacle.

Monroe joins Miller and hauls out the flashlight, directing the beam around the caves. Her restrained excitement of the three miles out here is giving way to grim disappointment, as far as Bellamy can read. Long seconds of silence stretch out, and he focuses on the sound of the end-of-winter woods breathing around them: branches whispering together, wind whistling, early birds singing exuberantly. It was embarrassing how many breaks he'd needed on the way here, but Clarke had threatened that he wasn't to be masochistic about this, and his companions had been glad of the breaks too, not being pushed to their limits – for once.

"We can see pretty far back, but it's not very big in the first place, and it's all swimming." Monroe's flat tone brooks no arguments.

Bellamy runs a hand through his hair and glances around, trying to think. "Is it stagnant or moving?"

"Is it warm?" Harper adds loudly. Bellamy raises an eyebrow in appreciation, carefully angling his hot palms into the cool breeze. That _would _be good.

Miller jumps down the few feet of jagged rocks to get into the cave mouth. Kneeling down to swish his hands in the water, he glances around the walls, making a face a second later and stepping back up with hands in jacket pockets. "Very cold, but moving."

"Useless," Harper mutters. Bellamy privately agrees.

"Okay, thanks guys. That's too bad. Let's get you back up."

While he sorts out the ropes Miller and Monroe had used going down, listening to the quiet cussing as they two try to get back up the bank, Harper wanders a little way aways. She returns ten minutes later with her arms full of broad-leaved, pink-blossomed plants and a beam on her face.

"Hey Bellamy, Clarke's been grumbling for ages about how there's no Spireaaround for our cramps, but there's a whole mini-cave-full over there. Just in that dip, there's this rock covering a whole bank. Nice, huh?"

Miller coughs at the mention of cramps, but Bellamy has been helping Octavia with pain relief for too many years to be bothered by it. "Nice find, Harper. Have you got any with decent roots?" She nods, happy colour brushing her cheeks. "We could plant them then. Monty'll love it in his new herb garden. Seriously, great job."

Bellamy turns to the two hunters packing up their ropes. "Maybe we can bring back some meat too. Harper's just upped the game."

"Is that a _challenge?_" Miller rubs his hands together and chuckles. "Who can bring back the most useful stuff? Loser takes the next night guard shift of the winner."

"If Clarke's judging? I'm in." Harper slaps her free hand on Miller's and smirks. "She'll just name Bellamy loser anyway."

"Hey! She is – yeah, fine." Bellamy snorts along with the others and sets off in the direction they had come not half an hour before.

It's hours later – more hours than Clarke will be happy with – before they even get near camp. In order to make the day worthwhile, Miller had suggested a large detour to spear as much game as possible. Bellamy feels exhausted now from this relatively easy excursion, which disturbs him. Those injuries have really made him slack off.

He's not the only one dragging his feet. Harper is lagging, so he's glad of the excuse to drop back and ask if she's doing okay.

She screws up her face, popping a leaf into her mouth. One of the Spirea leaves, Bellamy realises. "Fine. Just need a bit of this. And once we get dinner, I'll be all good again."

Bellamy's stomach audibly rumbles. Harper laughs. "You want some? It doesn't do anything, just fills you up. And I've got a whole backpack full of it now."

"If you're sure." Bellamy certainly isn't, and doesn't want to waste resources, but… it is still a mile and a half to camp.

"It doesn't even taste bad," Harper assures him. "More bitter than Clarke's normal tea, though."

Bellamy warily takes the whole plant she offers him and rips off a shred of the leaf, popping it in his mouth and chewing. Harper was right; bitter, and a little peppery, but on the whole, not too terrible. He half-smiles in thanks, shifting the two wild dog carcasses to his other shoulder.

Within ten minutes, the vegetation has him feeling surprisingly better, enough to joke with Harper and even get her to open up a little. Summoned by their laughs, Monroe and Miller wait to rejoin them. "Hey, what's so hilarious? I mean, aside from Bellamy's existence."

The leader rolls his eyes. "Harper's Ark story from when she was dared to grab extra food from the canteen. Seriously, when –"

"Have you started on the dog already?" Miller interrupts, eyebrows shooting up his face.

"Nah, it's just Harper's Spirea. It doesn't actually taste too terrible."

Harper grins at the doubt on Miller and Monroe's faces. "You want to try?"

"I'm actually good, thanks," Miller tries, but Bellamy teases him mercilessly for chickening out until he caves and crams five leaves in at once. The ensuing disgusted expressions keep Bellamy chuckling across the remaining dark mile to camp.

The scouts have the gates opened well in time for the four to troop in. Bellamy immediately goes into leader-mode, sorting out which runners will take away the meat. Monroe and Miller quickly peel off to their tents, but Harper volunteers to take the plant-stuffed backpack to Clarke herself. Bellamy catches Tin – the kid taking his wild dogs – wrinkling his nose at overhearing the offer. So Bellamy raises an eyebrow, inviting Tin to explain.

"It's just – she's trying to do physical therapy with the mechanic at the minute," Tin tells them, looking slightly pained, Adam's apple bobbing. "The last person to go in there –"

"Got a spanner to the head?" Bellamy guesses.

Tin looks slightly amazed, naïve youth that he is. "It was a wrench to the stomach, but… I'd leave it for now. They shouldn't be much longer, I think Clarke's helping with the cooking tonight."

"Alright." Bellamy claps him on the shoulder by the way of thanks and moves off towards the fire, glancing behind him to check Harper's following. The first rounds of meat – presumably what the actual hunting party had brought back today – are already on the fire and his stomach is growling. He was no stranger to hunger on the Ark, feeding Octavia all he could spare from his rations and then some, but here on Earth, it's been a while since anyone's gone to bed with a growling stomach.

But… pulling out of his thoughts, Bellamy realises Harper isn't with him. Turning properly this time, he sees her swaying ten yards away by the gates and looking kind of grey. Not good. He nods his head towards the fire, and Harper nods back, taking a tentative step towards him before she pauses and tips forward.

He doesn't get there in time, but Tin does – or at least, he slows Harper's shoulders enough that she doesn't smack her face into the dirt. Bellamy helps turn her over onto her back, eyes roving for any sign of threats. But there's nothing: no arrow in the back, no concealed knife wound to the gut. What even?

"Dawn," he barks to a passing girl, "get Clarke _now._"

She nods and scurries off as well as an eighteen-year-old can scurry, leaving Bellamy to kneel and pull Harper over his shoulder in a scar-straining fireman's lift. She's coughing on his back, weak but very alive, and he doesn't even have to ask for Tin to follow with the backpack. Whatever disease this is, Bellamy thinks grimly, the damn flowers might just come in handy.

He keeps his knees bent and breathing even in the bumping jog across the commons. Clarke meets him halfway up the ramp into the drop ship, darting back to draw the curtain aside. Bellamy's breathing hard as he makes it to the nearest plinth and unfolds Harper from his shoulder, catching her head carefully and putting her down. When he stands back, Raven is strapping on her brace and a nastily deep scowl, her eyes following Clarke as the healer hurtles back in with a freshly-rinsed sick bucket.

She's by Harper's side immediately, tucking her patient's hair back and talking in low tones for several minutes. She stands back up with a crease in her forehead; Bellamy decides they're in it for the long run and falls onto the plinth behind. He wouldn't admit it out loud – although Clarke will already have picked up on it – but all that carrying and the exercise in his weakened state has made him light-headed with tiredness. And his stomach is clenching unpleasantly from hunger.

But his healer doesn't comment in any way, just turns to him and demands, "what _happened _to her?"

"No wounds, no heatstroke, she's been drinking," Bellamy replies, slightly breathless. Raven turns away in disgust, though he realises it's not aimed at him.

"Any contact with diseased people? Poisons?" Clarke asks, pulling up Harper's semi-conscious head and shining the med bay flashlight in her eyes. "It's not a concussion."

"Nah, we've not seen anyone. Only eaten the fire bread, smokehouse meat, and those wrinkled apples still going round." Bellamy reconsiders. "Oh, and Harper found a whole bank of Spirea. She gathered a load, said you could use it for the girls' cramps?"

"Yeah!" Clarke's excitement doesn't stop her checking in Harper's mouth. "For all pain relief, actually. We won't have to get people wasted on moonshine now." She turns to him and beams, and for a second the world lights up. But then it melts off her face and Clarke narrows her eyes at him. "You know –"

Bellamy never finds out what he should know, because at that moment his stomach clenches. Hard.

In a single hard surge across the room, Bellamy throws himself over the vomit bucket in time for his stomach to empty itself. It's nasty and intense and he's only ever had one stomach bug before so by the time he's retching up acid, ears ringing, he's wishing desperately that O were here again to reassure him it'll be okay.

The weight of a small hand, and then another, on his shoulders helps. Having Octavia see him so ill would worry her terribly, and she'd have no way of helping him herself; it would kill her, and kill him to see her so angry and upset. But Clarke can straighten him out. She's such a great healer. She'll heal the whole damn earth, with all its problems and hate, in time.

Bellamy pushes himself up, trying not to make eye contact with Clarke as he seizes the bucket. "I'll just –"

"Nope." Clarke's caring hands on his shoulders force him to lower back to the floor. Her determined voice is out, and if Bellamy were feeling less grotty and weak, he wouldn't be so rubbed up the wrong way. It's probably the sixth sense that tells him he's fucked up again and is about to find out how. "Were you guys snacking on the Spirea?"

Bellamy feels too nauseous to speak or even nod, so settles for a tightening of the lips. A shroud of dread has settled over him, and Clarke's measured exhale does nothing to alleviate that worry. Being able to read her so well has drawbacks sometimes, and an inability to lie? Right now, that's one of them.

"What is it?" Raven peers over Clarke's shoulder at him slumped by Harper's bed. "Clarke?"

"I think Aspirin poisoning," she says carefully, and for him, this just sounds like _oh God_. "We only ever make it into a weak tea for pain relief. They've ingested too much salycilate. I've not seen this particular strain of Spirea and it might have evolved to have a higher concentration of salycilates. Bellamy, did the others eat it too?"

"Mm-hm." Is the room spinning or is that just the weird pressure in his ears? He tries to look up at Clarke now, grab her attention so he can focus on her. Because everything in his vision is blurring, pixelating, and his head feels really full of blood, like it's pressing in then sucking out. A black hole, inverting.

He swallows, throat thick with trying to say something. Clarke is speaking to Raven, voice hurried and tight, something about getting Monroe and Miller, but their voices reverb in his ears. And as Bellamy's trying to distinguish their sounds from each other, make the nonsense into words and meanings again, maybe regain a little normalcy in his fuzzing nerves, a quiet beached-fish gasping fills his ears, louder and louder accompanied by ringing.

_Is it me? _he wonders, semi-wildly. The ringing probably is. But the gasping… no, it's coming from behind him. _Harper. _

_Harper!_

But the one fuzzy figure in front of him – where'd Raven go? – isn't looking over there, she's pulling buckets and blankets from a cupboard shelf above her head. His stomach is still rolling unhappily, but Bellamy manages to cough out "Clarke" and "Harper".

He has to pitch forward over the bucket again for it, entire body burning and exhausted, limbs somehow extremely heavy, but when he regains his senses, Clarke is buzzing around Harper with water. She's muttering; Bellamy catches "severe poisoning", "dehydration, classic, that's going to be difficult", "hyperventilation, crap on a cracker". The last is a curse learned from one of the hundred and it sets him smiling slightly in his pathetic state.

His body slumps to the floor. Bellamy finds he hasn't much control over it, and besides, he's got no will to move from here. That would require so much energy… and the ear-ringing and vision-pixelating is fading away nicely now…

He hasn't the strength to hold up his eyelids or his stomach down as the remaining dregs of his energy focus there.

Before his brain can process it properly, he's slipped into unconsciousness.

There isn't a waking so much as the fuzzy realisation that he's regained some of his senses. There's none of the refreshment that comes with sleep. Someone is trickling water into his mouth, and it feels like night-time, but all his joints ache with rope-worn weariness.

Bellamy's muscles are clenching and unclenching, and the person beside him pauses as he gasps. His lungs feel like they're being scraped dry with sandpaper – but even worse, his roiling stomach is boiling poison and about to –

He manages to throw himself to the side of the bed just in time for his stomach to empty violently. The boy with him mutters something about "at least you can aim this time" and "Clarke'll kill me for this happening when she's finally napping" but places a hand on his covered arm, comforting. Terrible cramps shake his body, but Bellamy throws up more toxic acid before his body decides to completely shut down on him. He wants to know what's going on, what's happened, but his consciousness is pulled into the black air by the body he's yoked to.

There is nothing for a long time; brief snatches of noise, fleeting sensations of his body trying to squeeze itself dry all over again, but Bellamy can never quite even make it near the surface of reality, let alone break it. He feels like a spirit both too large and too small for this confining body as the world passes but he cannot access it.

And yet – when life is briefly touched again, it is too soon. Way too soon.

He's so hot and sweaty that for a wild, brain-clenching moment, Bellamy thinks he's passed out in the engine room again, where desperate Walden citizens could get harsh illegal work. Underpaid labour, in the cheap form of moonshine or other materials, Bellamy would hand it all to his mother so she could flog them for more money.

But no. There's no Octavia under the floor now, and she has a whole forest to run around in: it's more than they ever could have dreamed of, even in all their whispered imaginings. But… where is she?

His sister. Bellamy can vaguely recall enough, through fuzz-ridden mind, to know he's safe right now, and Octavia isn't. Where is she? Where is she?!

Bellamy's tongue comes stuck back to the roof of his mouth. He must have been saying something, speaking out – but what? There are shadowy figures on either side of him now. The light over his head, reflecting off the canvas around him, just makes the scene bleary. And it's blurring the words, which are taking a while for his brain to process now.

But then someone trickles water into his mouth, and it's like the gummed acid it cleans from his mouth is clearing a stream to understanding in his mind: the noise becomes soft words.

"I can't understand," someone is half-sobbing. The voice makes his heart squeeze. "It's getting worse. Miller and Monroe's have nearly cleared up now, but Harper is on the brink of coma. I can't…"

"Where the _hell _is Octavia anyway?" An angry voice, this one. "He keeps almost killing himself, and one of these days he'll manage it and she won't be around. Three months, is it now?"

Bellamy tries to speak out; manages to force a "help me" from his rasping throat. It only serves to still the girls either side of him.

"What? What did he say?" The angry voice is suddenly strong with need.

" 'Tulungan mo ako'… what does that even mean?" His wrung-out girl is muttering to herself, but Bellamy can picture her now pursing her lips and turning away. "Raven, get Glass. This sounds like what she speaks. She might be able to shed some light on it. Or, you know, Octavia."

_Raven. Octavia. _He can picture them around him now, the cool hand smoothing through his hair surely his sister's loving touch, its hot absence when she goes to get him water. He misses her so much – so, so much. He built all his life around supporting Octavia, and now she's gone, the grounding of his life is shifting dangerously. Where is she? Where is she?!

"Octavia!" The word is a desperate plea from his nuclear waste of a throat. "Octavia… come back, please. _Please."_

There's a strangled sob from somewhere above him as he just repeats the words over and over, and Bellamy forces his eyes to focus slightly. He knows this shadowed face – his brain can fill in all the blanks, it has been for years and years, so though the girl is barely lit, his brain decides she must be his sister. And besides, who else can fill him with such calm just by taking his hand and holding it tightly in both of theirs?

"Hey, we got her." The angry girl's voice – Raven. Bellamy's mind is heating and fuzzing, along with the tips of his fingers and toes, but he can still register their voices, although his mind is taking a long time to sift the noises into meanings again.

"Glass!" Octavia calls from beside him, a chord of desperation tingeing her voice. "What – what's he saying? Aside from 'Octavia'?"

Another person comes to his other side, their long hair dipping onto his burning arm. There's a pause, measured breathing as the girl who looks like a cousin from another life meets his gaze distractedly. This girl too, he feels like he should remember. But he can't stop his lips from moving, chanting his mumble to Octavia anyway.

"'Bumalik ka sa akin… pakiusap…' " The new girl's face is swimming in and out of focus, but she's saying his words right back at him, and with better pronunciation than Octavia did. Maybe his sister's out of practice, being down on earth with little time to remind themselves of their other language. And she'd wanted to learn Trigedasleng from Lincoln so maybe her tongue's a little skewed from that…?

It can't be that, but his mind is too feverish to find the reasons right now. Bellamy runs through their daily practices, where they would trade new Tagalog words and phrases. She was quicker at picking them up, had a better memory too, so even though he would trade words with the other two Filipino families, she was the one who could speak it fluently first. By the time she was ten, their mother had all but forgotten English anyway.

The familiar-looking girl on his right is whispering furtively to the others over his limp body, but Bellamy can't make his brain focus to decipher the English any longer. It just sounds unhappy, plaintive noises coming from all three, and his left hand gripped even tighter in that warm grip.

His mind begins to darken, overtaken by the fever that's pressing down on his eyes and stomach and lungs, but it brings a last burst of clarity, and suddenly he _remembers. _"Gl- Glaiza?"

That dark sheet of hair whips back round and almost hits him in the face. "Bellamy?"

He tries to cough and fails. "Glaiza…"

"Why is he calling you that?" Raven's blurry voice manages to compute in his mind, demanding.

"It's my real name," she tells them quietly, just above the roar of blood in his ears. "But it would confuse most people. So we only used it when speaking Tagalog, practicing with each other occasionally. Aurora was the best out of all of us, Bellamy right behind."

He tries to tell her that Octavia was always better than him, better in every way so of course in Filipino too, but it just sinks him into a stupor he can't get out of for another long time.

His mind is a tangled rush of heat. His ears ring incessantly, snatches of voices pulling through and whirling, bringing half-dredged memories to the undulating surface: Octavia screaming for their mother, Shumway's boot in his ribs, Atom's desperate begging for death. Other images – faces he can't recognise in this regressed state – of people stabbed to death, strangled to death, whipped, shot, burnt alive…

And revealed at the centre of all of them stands a girl, a halo of gold surrounding every kind word, every cruel move, every single calculated action she makes. Bellamy relaxes and is energised by her; she will keep him safe, and he tries to do the same for her. Except people keep coming to take her: stab _her_ in the stomach, roast _her_ with rockets, shoot _her _in the back of the head. And he throws himself in front of her time and time again, but it's always, always too late. And that knowledge – that he can't save her – sends him into a pit of despair, always filled with more enemies killing her.

His heart beats a mile a minute, its footfalls covering the Earth swifter than Bellamy could even dream of. Shouts in his ears make it pulse harder, and his body seizes with toxic pain. Cool thuds against his skin don't help; everything just adds to the sensation of being roasted in steam over a giant rocket fire.

And at the height of this mountain of pain, the very deepest tunnel he can find in the mine of heat, he finally finds a lifeline. A voice.

The tune is simple and plaintive. Soothing. A balm that soothes his inflamed mind just enough to access sensible memory for a moment.

_Nang munti pang bata sa piling ni nanay, nais kong maulit ang awit ni inang mahal… _

A lullaby. One his mother sang to him, then to Glaiza when her mother died, and then to Octavia. Her voice had been so loving, so beautiful. She'd had several songs from her homeland: 'Pangako', 'Ikaw Ang Ligaya Ko', 'Kung Ako'y May Aasawa'.

This tune, 'Sa Ugoy ng Duyan', was the song he had the earliest memories of, though. And they flood his mind with distorted images and sounds and emotions. Something nags at him, his mind trying to remind him of something. Something important. Someone, maybe. What was it?

_His mother. _He'd lost her now, they were on the ground… And yet these aren't the revelations. Bellamy goes searching, through the red landscape, twisting, but the lullaby is still there, weaving between the landscape. He remembers the incredible greens and browns of the wood, how there's none of this blood red in the wonderful forest.

The damn lullaby. He wants to search for his mother in the red instead, just melt into that, but his heart has other ideas. It wants to hear the song – starts telling him there's a loving girl right next to him, he has to stay for her – and Bellamy is propelled into semi-consciousness.

Only, there's been a pause in the music. "Awit ng pag-ibig… habang ako'y na…sa duyan," he whispers in pants. _Song of love in the cradle._

It's so beautiful.

He wants so badly to sleep now.

"Bellamy?" He tries to open his eyes. Someone's calling him. But even when his eyelids are open, he can't see, and – and –

He starts gasping, panicking, the weight of sand in his lungs seeming to absorb even more water within seconds. It sends him into chaotic shock. The singer starts garbling behind him, saying "Clarke! Clarke!" on repeat.

The arm which had been across his chest is abruptly pulled off, the figure at his side uncurling. He feels her hair across his face and it slows his gasps of fear. She strokes through his hair and the tenderness comforts.

"Octavia?" Maybe it's her. He can't imagine anyone else staying by his side like this.

But the singer… _Clarke,_ she had said. Clarke.

She's the only face beside Octavia's that he can still see through the darkness of his mind. Bright. Faithful. True. Strong.

And he wants her, more than anyone else, beside him.

"O, I…" He coughs, and the girl with him – _Octavia_, it's got to be – trickles water into his mouth. He forces his lips and throat around the words. "Octavia, I need you. I need Clarke. Can you get her for me?"

His helper stills, listens to someone repeating parts of his words, even as the hand on his shoulder shakes. _Octavia, kailangan kita_…

"Bellamy… stay with me." She turns back around, saying something quietly – brokenly – in a voice that wavers on _at its worst _and _if he makes it through_. Bellamy clutches her hand, hard.

"Kailangan so kiya," he manages to get out. His eyes are stinging, his body racing itself to the end. Repeats, "I _need _her, I need Clarke. Where is she?"

She says something back, or at least tries to, but her words are drowned in the desperate gasps and blood fuzz of his head. And if he's going to drown in his own blood, then he needs to pay the last debt standing, leave Earth with every unresolved tie paid out blue.

He can't let his sister live while blaming Clarke – because, being the stubborn Blake she is, that's what she'll do.

"Octavia," he gasps, "mahal so kiya. _Mahal so kiya._"

There's a quiet sigh in the background, but Bellamy blindly grabs for the hand soothing his cheek. It is bringing him spots of peace amongst the inner turmoil. He needs to hold both of these hands for as long as he can, cling to that brief oasis of peace, and he doesn't want to face death, doesn't want to leave them now –

_I won't be dragged down,_ he tries to shout, but his body is pulling away, so he concentrates every fibre of his being on the hands in his and the tears hitting his skin, and he builds his own life raft from memory to carry him.

His heart begins to tire, crack from the effort, but Bellamy fights, carrying the spirit of _her_ with him.

It takes a very long time to beat back all the monsters and armies of darkness. So, so, long, trudging, weary, desperate. And when he has nearly won, he is so exhausted that another darkness – with a quite different feel to it, warmer and kinder than the last – envelops everything. He doesn't even dream.

Eventually, when he wakes, it bears more of a touch of reality – a proper awakening, less drenched in images from his own head. Quiet, too. Cooler. Bellamy lies still, his body sweaty and tickling and _wrecked_ from the fight that's still not quite over.

So why did he wake when there's so much healing left to do?

And then he hears words, crackled and to a more swaying tune than he'd heard them before, so it takes a moment to realise he knows them. "Bésame, bésame mucho, como si fuera esta noche la última vez…"

There's a frustrated sigh in the middle, accompanied by a metal _thwack_, before the singer continues to mumble her tune in the morning quiet. The vague splashes and conversations from the main camp provide a comforting canvas of reality in the background. When she gets to "Que tengo miedo a perderte, perderte después," Bellamy realises that this old Spanish love song – that he doesn't even know the meaning of – is managing to wake his strength again. Very slowly, note by note, a little feeling returns to him.

He tries to turn his head a little to see the girl and fails. Has to stay still for a moment to regain his strength. He knows her voice as an ally, easily, but can't summon the face or name. Concrete nouns are still too far-flung from the epicentre of the crater the poison has made of his mind.

One way to summon her. And anyway, it's what his tired mind demands.

Bellamy quietly joins in. His strained, badly-prounounced rasp of "Quiero tenerte muy cerca," isn't fully registered, although the girl quietens as she sings the next line – "Mirarme en tus ojos

verte junto a mi" – so she can hear him sing too.

Within a second, she's standing over him, eyes wide and hands on hips. Her face… he runs it through the database, mentally sighing in relief when it finally matches with _Raven._ "Bellamy Blake, you dark polyglot horse. First all this Filipino, and now Spanish?" She carefully begins the process of getting to the ground with a bad leg, shaking her head as she goes. "I didn't think Clarke's bringing-you-back-with-song theory would actually _work,_ wow… Too bad you let me go through all seven of the other Spanish songs I know first before we finally hit gold."

Bellamy coughs, trying to wetten his dry throat. Raven takes the hint and slowly tips a tin cup to his mouth.

Eventually, Bellamy's able to talk properly, although it takes him a moment to remember how to access English. Even then, it sounds like a rusty hinge. "My Mom was Filipino, so we spoke Tagalog most of the time with her. I don't know Spanish." The song had only ever been about the soulful sounds of love it transmitted to him, the aphasic listener.

"Then how'd you know that old song?" Raven asks him, unabashed. "Andrea Bocelli didn't just plant himself in your home by accident."

Bellamy frowns, recalling misty memories of his mother crooning it to his little sister when she cried in the dead of night. "My mother said it was one of the three good things she got from my father. Me, Octavia and 'Bésame Mucho'. He used to sing it to her." He coughs again.

Raven's eyebrows are creeping up her face. "Your dad spoke Spanish? Who was he?"

"Don't know. Mom never told. She was adamant." He tries to turn his head away to signal the conversation over, but it takes too much effort and his eyes close of their own accord.

Before cool darkness envelops him again, Bellamy hears Raven snort softly. He doesn't have time to wonder why before he drops over the edge into unconsciousness.

Waking again is difficult work. Bellamy floats for hours in a semi-conscious prison, anxieties teasing him, but unable to break out and vanquish them with rationale. Exhaustion eventually reclaims him, but only a few hours later he's left sweating in the desert of semi-awareness: someone helping him drink, throwing off his blankets, talking to him, and he can't get to them. There are more songs; but none of them help.

In fact, in the end, it's the silence that works.

Some part of his brain must slowly pick up that he is surrounded by complete silence. It sends warning bells after several hours of this strange lack of noise, because camp with the delinquents is never completely devoid of sound. And like the desperately caring dad-slash-leader he is, anxieties surface about what terrible things could be happening and tug on him until he's suddenly breathing easily, and his body is back where it should be, fully under control of his sleepy but rational mind.

_Finally._

It's tempting to just lie there, revelling in the feeling of control and (tired) normalcy once more, but Bellamy can't bear the idea of leaving Clarke alone to cope with everything for one minute more. She must've been shouldering _so much_ in these days – and has Harper made it? Did Octavia return, or was she a figment of his fevered brain?

"Clarke?" he croaks. Where is she? Bellamy tries again, voice more insisting – _"Clarke"_ – but there's nothing. She wouldn't leave him – or any patient – without a supervisor unless something terrible had happened.

_Shit._ He grits his teeth, braces his hands on the floor to push up.

The effect is less than spectacular. Bellamy barely makes it to sitting position, arm muscles trembling and stomach squeezing, before he has to rest, panting. It's only in glancing around the room for distraction that he notices her.

Five feet to his left, Clarke is crashed out on the floor. She's on her front, head pillowed on her arm, and splayed as if she'd fallen, but – Bellamy realises with the tiniest hint of a smile – she's probably just not slept for two days straight and couldn't stop herself. Whereas he's on a pallet, swaddled blankets kicked aside, there's only a measly rag of a blanket pulled over Clarke. It has the feel of Monty's handiwork.

He can just see Harper's feet poking around the corner, and though his friend's breaths are laboured, Bellamy relaxes in the knowledge that she's under the best care. She'll pull through, with Clarke's help.

God, what a battle it's been. Stupid plants.

He knows he should probably lie down again; Clarke would want (well, instruct) him to rest, and clearly the camp isn't at risk after all. But from here, he's got a wonderful vantage point to watch her soft breathing flutter the strands of knotted hair that have settled near her bitten-raw lips. There's deep lines of exhaustion written in her face, which even in sleep looks saddened. Bellamy wishes, with a powerful yank on his heartstrings, that she should never have to look that way again. And the fact that _he's _caused it just deepens the ache.

Carefully, he shuffles a foot closer to her. Checks that nobody's outside, watching him watching Clarke – which just makes it sound creepzoid, but he can't help himself any more than a waterfall can just stop falling, and really it's taking everything in him to not curl around her as it is. The desire to enjoy the simple pleasure of curving around his most trusted friend has his fingers aching to lie down next to her. But it's only from this closer distance that Bellamy can really see the layer of dirt around her face and hands, and – through these signs of devotion – tear tracks are etched in.

Bellamy has to close his eyes, the urge to protect her and claim her is so strong. And when did it get like this? When did his urge towards Clarke manage to outgrow the worn pull towards his sister?

It's in the middle of this inner war that Clarke's eyes slowly open. She blinks, trying to brush aside the sleepiness, and it's already too late for Bellamy to pretend like he wasn't watching over her (whatever, they've both done it in their time) so he just enjoys seeing understanding filter in and warm her face.

"Bellamy," she breathes, pushing up from the floor. Part of him registers that his own tensely-held expression has melted right into dedicated tenderness, but mostly he's just full of _ClarkeClarkeClarke_ and they've both thrown themselves at each other and he envelops his partner and squeezes her as tight as he dares.

She's hugging him back just as tightly, and his eyes are closed and face buried in her golden tangles, his hot breaths absorbed by her. Clarke takes a shuddering breath in his arms, shaking slightly as she tries to hold back tears, but Bellamy's already failing at it, their mutual relief overwhelming and crashing. For a glorious long moment, he revels in the glorious sunlight that is holding Clarke, his soul peaceful for this extended pause in time.

But there's words he still has to say to her, and the value of precious seconds alone has never been lost on him. "Clarke," he mumbles, voice threatening to crack, "you saved me."

"We save each other," she replies immediately, sniffing at the end. "Though one of these days, your stupid near-death experiences will be the near-death of the rest of us. I can't believe you almost _died_ on me."

Clarke draws back, and Bellamy complies reluctantly, his arms empty without her. But it means he can study her face better again, watch the weak relief that trickles across her expression as they just breathe, together.

"When I was in there…" Bellamy shakes his head, words spilling without his meaning to let them go. "I almost couldn't come up. It was you who kept me here." And on an impulse, he can't stop the final words: "Don't leave me, Clarke. I need you."

She smiles gently, as if replaying the time when she said that to him, a beam of early sunshine from the half-open door illuminating her hair brilliantly. "Kailangan kita, too."

He can't keep the wide smile off his face. "You learnt Tagalog?"

"You spoke it enough," she scoffs. "Thanks for telling me before that you're bilingual, asshole. I had to learn the basics from Glass."

His expression dims a little as he is transported back to those hazy hours. And the realisation that Octavia must have been all an image, after all. _So who heard…?_

"What did she teach you?" It takes too much strength to match her gaze, the stone of fear in his chest making his fingers shake in hers, and when did they start holding hands? It feels so safe to clasp her hand like this, a promise to be his anchor, and he never wants to have to let go.

"Kailangan kita; I need you. Huwag mo akong iiwan; don't leave me. Tulungan mo ako; help me." Her voice breaks on that, and Bellamy's face shoots up to see Clarke's eyes shining with tears. "You said that one a lot," she explains, voice swollen. "You cried them all a lot."

Without thinking it through, he pulls her head to his chest, where she begins to sob. "Hey, I'm not – I'm not leaving you either. And you did help me." He tries to keep his voice soothing, one hand around her back, the other stroking her head. Searches for a distraction, and finds it in the rock of anxiety sitting in him. "Any more Tagalog?"

"Mahal ko siya," Clarke gets out between breaths.

It stops his strokes for a moment. He must have stiffened too, because Clarke looks up at him, her face swollen from the crying.

"Did Glass tell you what that one meant?" he asks, face turned away. He can still feel Clarke's head shake side to side.

"She said that was one for you. But… I think I know." His eyes snap down to hers, but it's her turn to look away, closing her eyes with anguish written across her face.

And that's all it takes for the rock to crack, its shards flowing through him to lodge in his nerves, lungs, heart.

There's a noise from the doorway, but by the time Bellamy lifts his eyes, they're already gone. Clarke doesn't appear to have noticed, anyway. Her hands are shaking, and she tries to push away from him.

"I need you, Bellamy. But we can't ever be more than co-leaders." When her watering eyes meet his, a painful ache fills his chest so he almost can't breathe again. "You know that. We've both known that for a while. For the kids. If we broke up… if anything happened…"

"It'd be about as messy as it would be now." He tries to recapture her hand. Her expression just worsens under his terse desperation. "Clarke. Come on. If it's just me overstepping, you can just say now. I won't press you, make it awkward."

She has to look away, more tears spilling down her face as the emerging sun lights up her eyelashes. She doesn't need to say anything for him to know, right to his core, that Clarke feels the same way as him. And that she believes that in this, she cannot be allowed to accept happiness. "We _can't. _Not with the adults looking to our bunch of delinquents and already thinking…"

"Your mom likes me. She respects us, Clarke." But already his heart is falling off a cliff, and he's losing her. "Clarke, you were the only thing that kept me _alive_ when I almost died. Life's too short for not – "

"We can't put ourselves first." She stumbles upright, rubbing her face. "Whenever anything happened, you'd want to save me rather than take the sacrifice to save the group."

He can't deny it. It's too late to change that desire, way too late and he's too far gone. "But we _both_ know that we both have to put the kids first. It's what we've always done, we're not slaves to emotions, we can still do that." Desperation tears at him. "I _know_ you, Clarke. _Mahal kita."_

Even the sound is intimate, because who else can share this with them? It's the one thing he thought was theirs, and theirs alone, but Clarke has lain it open for him, pointed to where all their delinquents sit between them. The words force Clarke to meet his gaze a final time. "This – our feelings – stay in here. We can't do this."

"Yes, we _can_." How can she reject his love – his love for her – when she carries the same?

"Please, Bellamy." She sags, as if her dreadful decision is too weighty for carrying alone, and in that moment Bellamy knows he'll help her carry it for all the reasons she wants to silence.

He can't look at her as he gives a single, resigned nod.

His heart breaks to the sound of her footsteps going down the drop ship door and into the morning.


End file.
